England batsmen look to battle spin ahead of ICC World T20.

England’s limited over batting coach Graham Thorpe has called for the rest of the players in the side to pull up their performance after the side is dealing with a few injury issues. While Joe Root has been ruled out of the ICC World T20 as well, Stuart Broad and Eoin Morgan are dealing with knee injuries as well. Thorpe hoped that the batsmen will face the spinners well in the ICC World T20.

“We obviously need to improve, at the top in the first six overs, with the bat. We’ve got four games left [before the start of the World Twenty20], and I don’t think we’re 100% sure on the line-up. So we’re looking for performances from the guys, to put their hand up and say ‘Look, it’s going to be me’,” Thorpe was quoted as saying by The Independent.

“Playing spin for English players is not straightforward. We don’t play heaps of spin consistently throughout the year. We mustn’t fret about it. We must just improve. We have to identify those players who are capable of going to Bangladesh and actually having a gameplan, and the skill to be able to perform — know where they can score their boundaries and put competitive scores on the board in Bangladesh,” he added.

Spinners are expected to dominate in the ICC World T20. In the Asia Cup 2014 gone by, spinners from all the five teams played a crucial role. Emphasising the need to score against the spinners, Thorpe said, “To do that, we have to be bold; we have to hit boundaries, and be able to manoeuvre the ball around against quality spinners — maybe bowlers we don’t read as well. We’re certainly not going to panic, but we’re not going to stand here and say we played spin well on Sunday — we didn’t.”

England have two more T20s left against West Indies. They are placed in Group 1 of the World T20.

First Published on March 11, 2014 6:28 PM ISTLast updated on March 11, 2014 6:28 PM IST